Sparrow isn't just for Mac users anymore: Sparrow for iOS is a playful, but …

Apple's own Mail app is a serviceable mobile e-mail client on iOS, but it definitely lacks flair. The developers behind the popular OS X e-mail client Sparrow aim to address that with their new Sparrow for iPhone. The app offers a unique UI as well as compatibility with most IMAP accounts. But because of Apple's limits on background-processing APIs, the first version of Sparrow shipped without push notifications for new e-mails, which will undoubtedly limit its appeal as a true Mail alternative.

Inspired by top iPhone apps

Like the desktop version, Sparrow for iOS aims to make dealing with e-mail as quick and painless as possible. The main view is a list of e-mails in your inbox presented in a Twitter-like fashion. Swiping an e-mail reveals a contextual menu which lets you reply, star, label, archive, or delete a conversation or thread. The title bar is also swipeable, letting you easily switch between inbox, starred, and unread-only views.

Swiping to the left on any e-mail reveals a contextual menu similar to previous versions of Twitter for iPhone.

Also like the desktop version, which owes much of its UI design to Loren Brichter's Tweetie/Twitter app, Sparrow for iPhone takes design cues from several other favorite apps from the developers. Its rounded corners were inspired by Twittelator Neue, and its conversation view is based on the Reeder RSS app. Sparrow's stacked navigation levels are also very similar to the most recent version of Facebook for iOS. Tapping the "list" icon on the upper left slides the main view to the left reveals a list of folders and labels to choose from. Tapping the "user" icon in the upper left again slides this list to the left, and lets you choose from your other e-mail accounts or a unified inbox.

You can see how Sparrow uses stacked panels, similar to Facebook for iPhone or Twitter for iPad.

Sparrow will pull in your contacts avatars from Contacts, Facebook, or Gravatar, depending on which one is available. It will show these avatars in your inbox list, and also show them when choosing who to send a message to. Using images this way helps users see e-mail senders and recipients at a glance, and is a major usability improvement for visually oriented people like me.

Swiping up or down will move among messages in a conversation. Sparrow also makes extensive use of avatars to make it easy to see who you are talking to at a glance.

Other UI touches include using an up or down pull-swipe to move between messages in a conversation, tapping the top bar while composing an e-mail to quickly switch which account it is sent from, and tapping the top bar from any folder or label view to quickly jump back to the inbox.

Sparrow supports e-mail accounts from Gmail, iCloud and MobileMe, Yahoo, and AOL out of the box, as well as custom IMAP accounts using your own e-mail server. If your company uses Exchange, you can also add your work e-mail if your IT department has enabled IMAP support. It doesn't yet support POP e-mail accounts, though support may be added in a future version depending on demand from users.

No pushing

The most frustrating omission from Sparrow for iPhone, however, is that it lacks support for push notifications. Without this support, users will have to launch the app to find out if there are new e-mails. For folks who rely heavily on getting e-mail as quickly as possible, this could be a deal-breaker.

We spoke to developers Dominique Leca and Dihn Viêt Hoà to find out why push e-mail isn't supported. To use standard push notifications, Sparrow would have to store user names and e-mail addresses for each user's account on a remote server. That server would then check for new mail and send a push notification to a user's device.

"This is a responsibility we're not ready to take," Leca told Ars. "As a startup focused on iOS/OS X development, we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk."

Sparrow could, however, use a combination of IMAP IDLE and local notifications, and that's how the app was originally designed. Since all the login information is stored locally, Sparrow can simply use IMAP IDLE to wait for the server to alert it that there is new e-mail. When new mail comes in, Sparrow could update its icon badge and even send an alert to Notification Center with the "from" and "subject" lines.

"We used the VoIP API to put Sparrow in the background while keeping a network connection open to the server," Dihn told Ars. "Sparrow is then 'suspended,' which means it will not use any CPU cycles. iOS will take care of the persistent connection, and it won't use much battery since nothing will be going back or forth on the network," he explained.

When receiving a notice from the server that new e-mail has been received, Sparrow would then resume, doing just enough work to update the icon badge and send a notification.

If you get mass amounts of e-mail, that can still potentially cause a big drain on the battery. However, the developers took care to optimize Sparrow to use up as little of the battery as possible. "It took us 2 months to get it right," Leca said.

"After extensive optimization and testing, we made sure Sparrow had decent battery consumption," Dihn added. "The battery consumption of native Mail and Sparrow are quite the same when enabling push."

Unfortunately, Apple was having none of it. Sparrow got rejected on the grounds that it used the VoIP API without providing any VoIP functionality. After removing the push support, however, Apple approved Sparrow for sale.

"Just a year ago, Apple would have rejected Sparrow for 'duplicating functionality' of Mail, so we see this as positive," Leca said. Still, the developers are trying to gauge demand for push support in hopes that Apple may reconsider its stance on the use of the VoIP API.

"It's tricky for [Apple]. We've done all the optimization work, but my guess is not all developers would. So Apple is right to keep the limits tight," Leca added.

Playful, yet usable

Sparrow is still a great first effort, especially given the constraints that Apple places on iOS. For example, you can't set Sparrow as your default e-mail application as you can on the Mac. And the push notification issue means that only Mail has the ability to keep you alerted to incoming mail as soon as it happens.

"We tried to make e-mail friendlier, and make it playful, while keeping in mind that we're also trying as much as we can to improve user efficiency," Leca said.

Sparrow for iPhone is $2.99 and is available now via the App Store. For now, it is iPhone-only, but Leca said that he is not ruling out an iPad version in the future.

55 Reader Comments

I deleted it about 15 minutes after installing it. It couldn't search for messages on the server (said there where only 3000 on the server when it's closer to 30 000) you can't jump to the next message when your in a message from what I could see. Found the navigation to be unessesarily distracting. Toggling between your inboxes was like playing marygoround, Interface did not seem nearly as slick or intuitive as their desktop app. My 2 cents.

Seems like it could be pretty nice on a jailbroken device though. LockInfo does a great job of alerting me to mail, I never use the built-in notifications. Sparrow could take over for Mail (the latter getting shoved into the last-screen "build-in" ghetto) pretty easily in that case. If that's the only major limitation, I'm definitely going to check it out.

Actually.. (Ironically).. the way that GMail works nearly the best on an iPhone is to set it up as an exchange account (m.google.com as the server) instead of the native GMail support. It's so much better.

Google Sync uses Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync® to let your users synchronize their Google Apps mail, contacts, and calendars to their mobile devices. They can also set up alerts (sound or vibration) for incoming messages and upcoming meetings.

The only way to setup a google account on an iphone... that does not totally suck

Quite simply, no, they're not right to keep the limit. If an application is battery hungry, selective forces will take effect, and it won't succeed. But in the end, it works for me. Like MSFT shooting themselves with metro, i'm fine with Apple continuing to make sure the competition will always be able to offer superior products, thus preventing a walled garden in which we don't even own the product we spent hundreds of dollars on, from becoming the only option on the market.

No, but to be fair, decent mail clients on Android are common enough that they don't qualify as news. "K9 Mail Still Does Everything You Could Reasonably Expect Of A Mobile Mail Client" is hardly a good headline.

Google Sync uses Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync® to let your users synchronize their Google Apps mail, contacts, and calendars to their mobile devices. They can also set up alerts (sound or vibration) for incoming messages and upcoming meetings.

The only way to setup a google account on an iphone... that does not totally suck

To be fair, it does have it's drawbacks. Deleting not actually deleting being the number one stand out bug/feature (although I have been using a "workaround").

To use standard push notifications, Sparrow would have to store user names and e-mail addresses for each user's account on a remote server. That server would then check for new mail and send a push notification to a user's device.

"This is a responsibility we're not ready to take," Leca told Ars. "As a startup focused on iOS/OS X development, we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk."

I understand this, but if you're going to offer an e-mail client (or anything else that cries out for push functionality)…you sort of need to develop those skills, put the resources into running the remote server, and offer this essential functionality. Like the developer says, there are good reasons for Apple not to allow the sort of workaround they put in place.

To use standard push notifications, Sparrow would have to store user names and e-mail addresses for each user's account on a remote server. That server would then check for new mail and send a push notification to a user's device.

"This is a responsibility we're not ready to take," Leca told Ars. "As a startup focused on iOS/OS X development, we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk."

I understand this, but if you're going to offer an e-mail client (or anything else that cries out for push functionality)…you sort of need to develop those skills, put the resources into running the remote server, and offer this essential functionality. Like the developer says, there are good reasons for Apple not to allow the sort of workaround they put in place.

I think they're waiting for Apple to introduce an API that allows push functionality. It's hardly an esoteric function; it's surprising that it hasn't been added yet. The hardware constraints that once made it necessary are long since gone.

Google Sync uses Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync® to let your users synchronize their Google Apps mail, contacts, and calendars to their mobile devices. They can also set up alerts (sound or vibration) for incoming messages and upcoming meetings.

The only way to setup a google account on an iphone... that does not totally suck

To be fair, it does have it's drawbacks. Deleting not actually deleting being the number one stand out bug/feature (although I have been using a "workaround").

No, but to be fair, decent mail clients on Android are common enough that they don't qualify as news. "K9 Mail Still Does Everything You Could Reasonably Expect Of A Mobile Mail Client" is hardly a good headline.

Android user here, but I would strongly disagree with "decent mail clients on Android are common".

Gmail is awesome, but the default email sucks and k9 is really a horrible ugly mess with none of the interface niceties you are seeing in these new clients.

If I am wrong I would THRILLED to be pointed to a decent mail client for IMAP/POP.

This is the Apple section of Ars Technica. If you want to see similar coverage of Android (or other) apps, I recommend you tell the editors and writers who are responsible for those sections.

This is the Front Page Portion of Ars Technica. If you want to isolate your article to your own section, I recommend you tell the editors and writers who put your article on the front page.

But since you're at it, I'll just wander over to the Android portion of Ars technica... wait. Where's the Andoid section, exactly? I only see an umbrella category that covers open sourse stuff. Why does the world's biggest mobile OS share space with Linux and Raspberry Pi and WebOS and Meego, exactly?

To use standard push notifications, Sparrow would have to store user names and e-mail addresses for each user's account on a remote server. That server would then check for new mail and send a push notification to a user's device.

"This is a responsibility we're not ready to take," Leca told Ars. "As a startup focused on iOS/OS X development, we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk."

I understand this, but if you're going to offer an e-mail client (or anything else that cries out for push functionality)…you sort of need to develop those skills, put the resources into running the remote server, and offer this essential functionality. Like the developer says, there are good reasons for Apple not to allow the sort of workaround they put in place.

I think they're waiting for Apple to introduce an API that allows push functionality. It's hardly an esoteric function; it's surprising that it hasn't been added yet. The hardware constraints that once made it necessary are long since gone.

Apple has an API that allows push functionality. A server has to send that push notification, which is why Sparrow would have to set up their own servers. If what you're talking about is an Apple-specific API for push mail notifications that third party mail servers have to implement independently of POP, IMAP, and ActiveSync, it seems a bit unlikely.

But since you're at it, I'll just wander over to the Android portion of Ars technica... wait. Where's the Andoid section, exactly? I only see an umbrella category that covers open sourse stuff. Why does the world's biggest mobile OS share space with Linux and Raspberry Pi and WebOS and Meego, exactly?

There's just as much an Android section at Ars Technica as there is an iOS section at Ars Technica!

To use standard push notifications, Sparrow would have to store user names and e-mail addresses for each user's account on a remote server. That server would then check for new mail and send a push notification to a user's device.

"This is a responsibility we're not ready to take," Leca told Ars. "As a startup focused on iOS/OS X development, we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk."

I understand this, but if you're going to offer an e-mail client (or anything else that cries out for push functionality)…you sort of need to develop those skills, put the resources into running the remote server, and offer this essential functionality. Like the developer says, there are good reasons for Apple not to allow the sort of workaround they put in place.

I think they're waiting for Apple to introduce an API that allows push functionality. It's hardly an esoteric function; it's surprising that it hasn't been added yet. The hardware constraints that once made it necessary are long since gone.

Apple has an API that allows push functionality. A server has to send that push notification, which is why Sparrow would have to set up their own servers. If what you're talking about is an Apple-specific API for push mail notifications that third party mail servers have to implement independently of POP, IMAP, and ActiveSync, it seems a bit unlikely.

I'm a little fuzzy on the details they're talking about though. Is the third-party mail server actually sending a notification, and if so, using what protocol? I assumed that their rejected version was waking up periodically to poll the server, but it doesn't sound like that's what they're talking about.

But since you're at it, I'll just wander over to the Android portion of Ars technica... wait. Where's the Andoid section, exactly? I only see an umbrella category that covers open sourse stuff. Why does the world's biggest mobile OS share space with Linux and Raspberry Pi and WebOS and Meego, exactly?

There's just as much an Android section at Ars Technica as there is an iOS section at Ars Technica!

As soon as Apple and Microsoft have to share a single "closed source" section of Ars, we'll have parity.

Man, talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I mostly like Mobile Mail but Sparrow has three things I would love:

1. Archive AND delete buttons at the same time. 2. Default search across all mailboxes/folders. 3. Attach images from within the app.

But not having that little badge showing me how many unread mails I have is a heavy price to pay. Anyways, I bought the app as a show of support, going to try using it and see how I get along without the badge. Hopefully either Apple will see this flying up the charts as a kick in the pants and will do these things themselves, or will let Sparrow work the way they designed it.

I deleted it about 15 minutes after installing it. It couldn't search for messages on the server (said there where only 3000 on the server when it's closer to 30 000) you can't jump to the next message when your in a message from what I could see. Found the navigation to be unessesarily distracting. Toggling between your inboxes was like playing marygoround, Interface did not seem nearly as slick or intuitive as their desktop app. My 2 cents.

To switch to the next and previous message, you simply pull up or down at the end of the message. Works pretty well actually.

I stand corrected. I had no idea Gmail sync on an iPhone could use ActiveSync.

What's funny is, this is *exactly* the kind of bullshit limitation/bug that Apple is notorious for. They want you to do e-mail THEIR way, and they aren't going to change it, even though everyone wants them to.

I deleted it about 15 minutes after installing it. It couldn't search for messages on the server (said there where only 3000 on the server when it's closer to 30 000) you can't jump to the next message when your in a message from what I could see. Found the navigation to be unessesarily distracting. Toggling between your inboxes was like playing marygoround, Interface did not seem nearly as slick or intuitive as their desktop app. My 2 cents.

To switch to the next and previous message, you simply pull up or down at the end of the message. Works pretty well actually.

For some reason they only implemented this for conversations. Personally, this lines up with how I use email (I only go from message to message in the context of a conversation, otherwise I like to go back to the email list) but it still seems like a strange limitation.

Quite simply, no, they're not right to keep the limit. If an application is battery hungry, selective forces will take effect, and it won't succeed. But in the end, it works for me. Like MSFT shooting themselves with metro, i'm fine with Apple continuing to make sure the competition will always be able to offer superior products, thus preventing a walled garden in which we don't even own the product we spent hundreds of dollars on, from becoming the only option on the market.

You have obviously never worked in customer support. Users don't understand that they have poorly written software, they just see their dying batteries and assume they have hardware problems. Until you've tried to convince a soccer mom with no real idea how technology works that really the problem is some $.99 app they bought for their kid to play with, YOU HAVEN'T LIVED!

No, but to be fair, decent mail clients on Android are common enough that they don't qualify as news. "K9 Mail Still Does Everything You Could Reasonably Expect Of A Mobile Mail Client" is hardly a good headline.

Yes K9 Mail does do everything including run your battery down to nothing in 6 hours and lets not forget making your eyes bleed every time you actually have to use it.

Has anyone found an iPhone mail client that will alert based on rules?

I don't want an alert for every work email (I get over 1,000 a day) but I need alerts for specific critical emails when I'm on call. Right now I have a script watching Outlook and send me an SMS when it sees specific emails, but that isn't ideal.